GDC 13: Intel announces PixelSync and InstantAccess

GDC 2013 is where the industry comes together to talk about the technology itself. Intel was there, and of course the big blue just had to unveil developments to help them in the PC gaming space. Two new major rendering extensions and updated developer tools debut. And, if you are not a developer, encode your movies with handbrake quicker!

First up is PixelSync, a DirectX extension for Intel HD Graphics. PixelSync is designed to be used with smoke, hair, and other effects which require blending translucent geometry. With this extension, objects do not need to be sorted before compositing.

Next up is InstantAccess. This DirectX extension allows CPU and integrated GPUs to access the same physical memory. What interests me most about InstantAccess is the ability for developers to write GPU-based applications which can quickly access the same memory as its CPU counterpart. Should the integrated GPU be visible alongside discrete GPUs, this could allow the integrated graphics to help offload GPGPU tasks such as physics while the CPU and discrete GPU handle the more important tasks.

Also updated is their Graphics Performance Analyzers toolset. If you are interested in performance optimization on your software, be sure to check those out.

And for the more general public... Handbrake is now set up to take advantage of Quick Sync Video. Given the popularity of Handbrake, this is quite a big deal for anyone wishing to transcode video using popular and free encoders.

How About HD graphics driver update sync, where Intel makes all the Laptop OEMs that never update their customized Intel HD graphics drivers, actually update these drivers!
My Toshiba C655, no updates, 3 years and waiting, My Samsung, 8 Months, no update, and my ASUS, I just recieved my update a few months ago! It would be so much easier, INTEL, if you would just place a sticker on the bottom of every laptop that Says: This computer Has Intel Generic HD graphics drivers! It is useally, impossable for me to get administrative privileges to download the components from your driver update website, and run them on a computer, so that I can tell if the drivers on the computer, that I may buy, are Intel Generic HD graphics drivers or NOT!

I very much like the idea of being able to use the iGPU for Physics processing! Keeping the load off the CPU Cores and the Discrete GPU could very well deliver the final crushing blow to PhysX, unless Nvidia gets smart and pushes the tech to the market first.

I very much enjoy PhysX in the few games supporting it, such as Borderlands 2, but having to pull a GTX560Ti 448cores 1.25GB card out of one of my folding rigs and throw it into my gaming machine, which already has 3x GTX680 Classified 4GB cards in SLI (with EV Bot V-control, HK Full-Card waterblocks + backplates, OC'd 24/7 1384Mhz Core & 7680Mhz Mem effective) that I've just swapped out for a pair of EVGA GTX Titan SuperClocked 6GB cards which seem to be much better than average OC-ers (1284Mhz Core each without trying...) and which are also under water via Aquacomputer Kryographics Titan Blocks, a 3930K @ 4.9Ghz, and 16GB DDR3-2482 9-12-10-29 1T Quad-Channel RAM.... Just to get the game to run without dropping below 72fps (running a 2560x1440 27" IPS OC'd to 72hz; it'll do 122hz but I like to V-Sync and NEVER worry about dropping lower).

The vast majority of people aren't quite as fortunate as myself and don't have nearly so much graphical horsepower at their disposal, which goes to show how much of an issue it is if when you run $2000 in GPU's it's still not enough to have a truly stutter-free game (although the vast majority are in my F@H farm, with about a dozen rigs running 3-4x AMD cards/each, mostly 5870's, 6950/6970's, and 7970's with 6 5970's + 4 6990's to get 20 GPU's in the space of 10, to mine Bitcoin to pay for the power usage; getting anywhere from 4-18 BC/day, which at this exchange rate is actually pulling me ahead; with all the Nvidia cards running F@H, ranging from 8800GTX's to 9800GX2's to GTX295's to GTX480's to GTX590's to, now, GTX680's, although the 680's rig also serves as my secondary gaming machine and isn't in the Folding Farm section of the house; I'm pulling in about 6.7-21.9mil PPD depending on what rigs and how many are running, which after losing so many people to cancer, Alzheimer's, and other diseases, is 100% worth spending money to support).

I have found that the RAM overclock has increases minimum framerates by a good 5-12FPS depending on the game(!!!!), but still....